The School on Heart's Content Road (16 page)

Mum has always told me she likes to have a guy with style. Ha! Gordie is definitely out of the picture there. Mum would definitely laugh her head off if Gordie said, “Will you marry me, Lisa?” with his hairy mouth, roundish throat, roundish body, working boots, and junky old truck.
And
gray tape on his sunglasses.

Mum always says my dad named Damon Gorely is very beautiful with a very pretty shirt and a nice car and a million CDs of the best music, and stuff in his apartment, neat stuff like big speakers and wall-to-wall rug and dishwasher and his phone does everything, like it can take five calls at once and
trace
. He is to be famous someday in rap. I like his pictures. He is a gorgeous hunk. You would agree.

Gordie is of the white color like Mum. My dad is of the black color like me. Except I'm more of a middle color. Like a gypsy queen. That's what Mum says. And I know someday I'll be on TV and people will look at me and won't believe their eyes, because I am prettier than other girls and people always stare and stare at me. On TV I'll get to wear long earrings and see-through-ish outfits or outfits that twinkle or outfits made of white fur stuff. And I'll put my tongue over my lips like this and men will die.

Jane Meserve visits her Mum. Jane speaks.

Claire St. Onge is Gordie's X-wife. Claire is fat. She is as round as a balloon. She was an Indian once. She lived with all the other Indians at a place called an Indian Township. She usually wears boots, like Gordie. She has very straight hair, part gray, which she wears fixed on her head with plain pins or in a clip so her hair is long and swingy. Also she wears
glasses that make her eyes wiggle-ish. She is short, like a little kid almost. I am almost taller and I am only six years old!

Claire is a lady of history, knows all the stuff of an olden age. She goes to be a real teacher at a university but only on one day, Wednesday. She says she is an
a-junk
. Probably because she has a special interestedness in historyish clothes and stuff like cruddy old pots and pans and knives and arrows. She has some pictures and she has some real examples. The examples have rust, I think. Yuk. Gordie calls Claire “our history expert.”

Claire has two ways she talks. One way is LOUD. The other way is whisperish and she makes her voice very interesting and scary, and the stuff she tells you is secrets. Also she
winks
. All the kids think she's cool and they love to do stuff for her and help her with going on trips to Ivy Leegs and lug boxes and all the kitchen stuff too. She calls them “my slaves.”

Today Claire took me to see Mum. And Mum loved my new sunglasses with the pink heart shapes for the parts that go over your eyes. Mum said, “
Where
did you get those great heart glasses?”

I said, “Stuart gave them to me.” Stuart is ONE OF THEM.

Mum said, “Jane, you know what those are? Those are secret agent glasses . . . which have special powers of vision!” She seemed especially happy about these glasses. She said SPECIAL POWERS OF VISION.

I said, “I don't think so, because I only see regular through them. But dark. And pink.”

She said, “But baby, you will have special viewing powers
at times
. Suddenly, you'll see what no regular eyes can see. So you can be a top-notch secret agent.”

The place where we had to sit to visit Mum is where the copguards make you sit. The chairs fold up if you don't sit too still. They are metal and sort of beige. There were kids and people in the other room, which is where all the rest went, but we were in a special room, which was so whisperish you could hear the copguards' clothes being scratchy. Beige chairs look mostly pink through these special glasses. And the really awful orange suit Mum was wearing looked hideous with
and
without my special glasses, but she just laughed when I asked what other colors she could get. Also, people and walls looked pink to me. The whole day was pink. You can't see yellow or white when you have pink glasses. I asked Mum, “What is a secret agent?”

“A spy!” she said cheerishly.

When Claire was gone a minute in the hall, to talk with a copguard who she says
has rank,
Mum explained that I could be a spy at Gordie's place and watch people and then write stuff down in a really small black book, everything they did, what they looked like and stuff and what they said. Then I could report back to Mum and tell her what I have in the black book.

She said, “From now on, don't call me Mum. Call me Headquarters.”

One of the copguards sitting at his own table practically beside us heard this, and he frowned.

I told her I would most definitely keep an eye on every one of them, but then I said, in a voice of misery so Mum will know I hate them at Gordie's, I said how I miss her and how when I am in bed at night I think of her and how very pretty she is. But Mum just smiled. And the copguard turned a different way so there was all this scratching sound of his pants and arms. And Claire came back smiling. Everybody very cheerish.

This made me mad.

Mum said, “As of today, Jane Miranda Meserve is hereby sworn in as Official Secret Agent One-one-one.”

After a while, I asked if there was a soda machine or one for chips and candy. But Mum said, “Not in this place, Jane. In this place, they consider everything a weapon.”

I sort of laughed. I looked at the copguard, but he was turned a little to see people walking by in the hall. He had a gun. I said to Mum, “I like your outfit.” It was actually more hideous than a dead vegetable, but you want to always be nice to your mum and never say stuff she wears looks gross.

Mum laughed and looked down at herself, then back at me. I decided not to mention her hair, which is always blonde with extra streaks for beauty. But now she has a plain ponytail like usually just for bed or to be sick. And usually she wears lipstick, red, called Glamourpuss or Scarlett O'Hara. Not now. Behind these glasses all Mum's beautifulish parts look sad and pink.

And I said, “So where is Cherish? Who's babysitting for
her
?”

Mum said, in a funnyish way, “Oh! Cherish ran away to a farm! She really always wanted to live on a farm where she could dig for rats and mice.”

I squinched my eyes behind my secret glasses.
She is lying. Something is wrong with Cherish. Something very bad has happened. To Cherish.
But I made my voice sweet and dopey. “Why can't me and her just both stay at Gordie's? There's cows and stuff at Gordie's.
And
guess what! There's another Scottie at Gordie's. Named Cannonball. Kind of mean. Bites. But Cherish won't mind. They could dig rats and be friends.”

Mum's voice was still weird. A voice of lies. With secret glasses, lies have a special sound, high and whiny. “I know . . . but Cherish . . . you know how she was! She always made up her own mind and stuck to it. She really
had
to check out the other farm. She wouldn't listen to anybody else's suggestions. Maybe she'll get tired of it and come back. Later.”

Through these secret glasses, Mum's face was starting to look wavery. “Mum, when are you coming home?” My neck hurt.

Mum said, “Soon.”

“How soon?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“Mum.” I didn't scream or run to hug Mum. I almost did. But I had strong willpower so I just sat there cool as a cucumber and said, “How come I can't stay here?”

“You can't.”

I take a deep deep DEEP breath and then push breath slowishly out out out out. “Why can't you come out and just visit?”

“I would if I could, but I can't.”

I look at her so hard, her beautiful hair and her lips.

“Can't you just come home for one single day?”

“No,” said Mum.

That night in bed, Secret Agent Jane begins her career. Jane speaks.

I am in my bed at Gordie's house. Gordie says it's okay if I keep the light on all night, even though he wants to NOT WASTE.

NOT WASTE is one of the big rules.

I wear my secret agent glasses even for night because I might need to see something in a special way.

Secret Agent Jane finds out
more
. She speaks.

Over the week I got a lot of information which I would never have got without these special glasses. Mostly, I hide behind doors. If the doors are open, I stand off to the edge. Also, I sit real quiet. This is always when they think I'm somewhere else. I have information of both Gordie's house
and
the Settlement, which is plenty of houses called shops, and I've been in them all. I've decided to do mostly pictures in my secret book. Spelling's too hard when you are in a rush.

Gordie is mean and makes me go up there to the Settlement place A LOT. Also, Claire is mean. Bonny Loo is mean. Bev is mean. Barbara is mean. They make me go up there when they KNOW I like it here at Gordie's house better . . . except there's no food here at Gordie's. Just what they bring.

I can tell they are trying to get me to LOVE all those kids at the Settlement and those people, but they are wrong. I'm not falling for it. Guess what. I actually saw somebody's lips actually say, “Oh, Jane. Your school is right here. It's School with a Plus!”

Right. It's so sick. Would you call
this
a school? Babies that suck are everywhere. Chickens that walk with people and peck at your shoes. Old ladies who are nuts. Loud ugly men. One has
no eyes
. One kid has a big bulge on his hand and a broken arm which might smell if I smelled it. The man named Oh-RELL sings loud to himself. One old
wicked-
old lady never talks, just always pats you. The guy Oh-RELL talks in a language. And his singing is awful. He will
never
be famous.

At meals which last for hours—yes, HOURS—kids and people make plays they call skits. For one of the skits we got all fixed up, but I can tell you, it was not beautiful. I wanted to do a sexy dance, but the other kids said that SEX would not fit that kind of play, wait till another one. I wanted to sing “Baby Stands Before Me,” but they said it didn't fit.

They all dressed in robes and wigs and masks and head things. At rehearsal, a bunch of them fought over the Thomas Jefferson mask and the mother named Gail said we could make twenty Thomas Jefferson masks later, but for now we had to draw a name and leave it to odds. Some kids were putting lipstick under their eyes. This was blood, they said, for Valley Forge. Some kids just wanted to look terrible and carry guns. These are the boys, of course. And one girl, one big weird girl.
But all the rest are boys. They carry guns or stick spears or sword things or knives or clubs. They said they were “The Hydra mob. The true heroes of the people.” But why do the girls try to be ugly too? Like, a teenager named Samantha wore a white yarn wig and pilgrim outfit like a man pilgrim and she had wire made into fake glasses. She was going to be a “Father of the Constitution.” She laughed and said, “It was our first
NAFTA
.” The rest of them just wanted to be army or mobs. There was nothing pretty to be.